16 Mar, 2012

New Reports Out On Australian Aviation, Transport Stats

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There were 27.6 million passengers carried on international flights to and from Australia in 2010–11, an increase of 7.3 per cent over the previous financial year. Growth in international passenger traffic for 2010–11 was driven mainly by the increase in the number of Australian residents travelling on international flights (up 10.4 per cent compared with 2009–10). Over the same period, the number of overseas visitors increased by 3.7 per cent.

Freight on Australian international flights increased to 822 477 tonnes in the financial year 2010–11 from 759 979 tonnes in 2009–10 (an increase of 8.2 per cent). This consisted of 509 839 tonnes (or 62.0 per cent) of inbound freight (up 12.5 per cent on 2009–10) and 312 638 tonnes (or 38.0 per cent) of outbound freight (up 1.9 per cent on 2009–10). Inbound freight exceeded outbound freight in each month between June 2003 and June 2011, apart from the months of January and February 2009.

Australia’s domestic airline industry continued to grow, with a record 54.1 million passenger movements in 2010–11, 5.9 per cent higher than in the financial year 2009–10 (page 7). The major domestic airlines carried 47.8 million passengers, an increase of 5.3 per cent over 2009–10. Regional airlines carried 6.3 million passengers, representing an increase of 10.8 per cent over the previous financial year.

The domestic aviation industry recorded 607 062 flights in 2010–11, 6.6 per cent higher than in the previous financial year. Of these, 379 773 flights (62.6 per cent) were operated by the major domestic airlines, an increase of 10.1 per cent on the previous financial year.The remaining 227 289 flights (37.4 per cent) were operated by regional airlines, up 5.6 per cent on 2009–10.The average load factor for 2010–11 was 78.7 per cent, a decrease of 0.9 percentage points compared with 2009–10.

Overall airline on time performance worsened in 2010–11 when compared to the previous financial year. On average 80.6 per cent of departures were on time, 78.8 per cent of arrivals were on time and 1.6 per cent of flights were cancelled.The equivalent figures for 2009–10 were 85.6 per cent for on time departures, 84.4 per cent for on time arrivals and 1.0 per cent for cancellations. Total domestic air freight movements at Australian airports reached 506.73 thousand tonnes in 2010–11, an increase of 25.1 per cent compared to the previous year.

Sydney continued to be Australia’s busiest airport with nearly 36.0 million passenger movements in 2010–11. Canberra was the only airport of the ten major airports to record a decrease in passenger movements compared to 2009–10 (0.5 per cent decline). Perth Airport experienced the highest growth in total passenger movements (9.0 per cent), followed by Cairns (8.7 per cent), Melbourne (7.9 per cent) and Darwin (7.1 per cent).

The air and space industry contributed $5.2 billion to the Australian economy or 0.40 per cent of Australia’s total gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010–11. This is an increase on the previous financial year, when it accounted for 0.38 per cent of Australia’s total GDP.

The price of aviation jet fuel trended higher in 2010–11, with the US dollar index increasing from 258.5 in July 2010 to a peak of 418.3 in April 2011 before finishing the year at 390.0.The price increase in Australian dollars over 2010–11 has been lower than the rise in US dollar prices due to the increased value of the Australian dollar.

CPI-adjusted airport charges for the representative international aircraft increased by 2.7 per cent at Perth and 0.3 per cent at Darwin but declined at all other airports.The largest reduction in charges was recorded in Adelaide (down 6.9 per cent), followed by Melbourne (down 4.3 per cent) and Sydney (down 3.6 per cent).

Hobart recorded the highest percentage increase in charges for the representative domestic aircraft of 46.1 per cent, followed by Canberra (up 41.1 per cent), Perth (up 12.5 per cent), and Darwin (up 2.4 per cent). At the same time, Adelaide recorded the largest decrease in domestic charges of 12.7 per cent, followed by Melbourne (down 5.7 per cent), Sydney (down 5.0 per cent) and Brisbane (down 4.9 per cent).

Download Avline 2010–11 [PDF: 2276 KB]

Avline provides a summary of previously released Aviation related data drawing on a range of sources including BITRE, ABS, Airservices Australian and the US Energy Information Administration. In addition, Avline provides a comparison of published airport charges at the five major capital city airports and at a selection of regional airports. Avline 2010–11 covers the financial year 2010–11 and is the third of the series to be published annually instead of biannually.

Download Traffic Growth in Australia [PDF: 7334 KB]

This report describes an overview of the different patterns of traffic growth in Australia’s states and capital cities and their determinants. Understanding the determinants of past and likely future traffic growth is important for understanding the needs for infrastructure investment, for congestion amelioration, for the road safety task and for many other trends that concern governments and citizens.

Download Traffic Growth: Modelling a Global Phenomenon [PDF: 11248 KB]

This report describes an overview of the different patterns of traffic growth in 25 Countries, and their determinants. There is a remarkable commonality in these determinants, but the variety of their operations has generated an amazing variety of traffic growth patterns. Understanding the determinants of past and likely future traffic growth is important to understand the needs for infrastructure investment, for congestion amelioration, for the road safety task and many other trends that concern governments and citizens in all the 25 countries.